By Rodd Cayton, The Paper. — Here’s a new gift idea for the philatelist and the gearhead in your life.
The U.S. Postal Service has launched new stamps featuring lowrider cars, featuring American Iron from the 1940 to 1980s. The stamps, issued Tuesday, showcase five eye-catching classics: “Eight Figures” (a blue 1958 Chevrolet Impala), “The Golden Rose” (an orange 1964 Impala), “Pocket Change” (a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme), “Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy” (a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline) and “El Rey” (a red 1963 Impala).
The stamps celebrate the lowrider culture that is rooted in 1940s-era working-class Mexican American/Chicano communities throughout the American Southwest.
Postal service Spokesperson Albert Ruiz told The Paper. that lowrider clubs have spread to Japan and numerous other countries. Albuquerque is one of the main centers of lowrider culture, with photographer Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli recently publishing Seventh and Central, in tribute to the cars and the people who love them.
Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps from photos taken by Humberto “Beto” Mendoza and Philip Gordon.
The stamps will be sold in panes of 15; they are forever stamps, perpetually valued at the first-class letter rate (currently 78 cents).